Hello all, I have been bickering with a few peeps in the thread on item degradation: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=454495 . Now in that thread there are peeps stating that master crafted gear is good enough to start completing TSO instances. I happen to think I have a bit better then master crafted gear yet I have a lot of trouble completing TSO instances. I was hoping that yall would give me some feedback on my gear and toon set up that may point out what I am doing wrong compared to all these people out there completing TSO instances in crafter level gear? I am in a casual guild, raiding is not likely and unless I tag along to another guilds raid, I don’t get to raid at all and don’t have access to raid level gear. I 80% of the time PUG. If I am playing my zerker, my wife is playing her mystic so common groups always have zerker mystic as a base. In my past attempts in the TSO instances we ran with two healers, usually a druid as second, and the rest DPS. I haven’t had a chance to play with a chanter/CC class yet in TSO. I can solo an encounter pull 99% of the time with no issues, it seems that I get hit really, really hard in TSO and I tend to drain healers mana by quite a bit. So we end up pulling really slow and adds are a lot of trouble, tanking multi encounters at one time. I can’t tank in TSO with 2 weapons, so I use a shield. I also have to use def. stance as that seems to make life a touch easer then attempt to tank in offensive stance. I am not fully mastered up but strangely agro is not a big issue for me, holding the mobs attention seems ok for me its just the damage I take that I preventing me from completing the instances. AA set up: Im probably a bit off, not sure if im remembering correctly, 128 AAs total: 70 aa in fighter tree Str – 4 4 8 8 Sta – 4 4 8 8 1 Int – 4 8 8 30ish assorted EoF AAs: 28ish AAs in TSO tree. Any suggestions and feedback are welcome. Thank you forgot to add link to my toon: http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=558486111
Respec your Fighter tree tbh untill you get T1 shard gear you will get allot of benifit from having the Wis tree going Wis 4-4-4-8 If you can spare the points raise 3rd on up a bit as this increases DPS or DA I forget which TB but untill you get up around 140-160 aa and have em in the right stuff in the shadow tree the mit buff and DPS or DA will help you allot more than the extra speed from Int. The Wis line also gives you Belly Smash which while it does not effect Epics will debuff the Heroic mobs in TSO and help ya hit em harder.
Bard and/or chanter really helps on groups. Not how you could gain more survivability without new gear, def stance and shield is allready on heavy side of defense.
Just going off what he put up there. Says he takes 2 healers the rest DPS so sounds like a survablity issue to me so some extra Mit might put him over the top for anouther % and lessen the inc damg enough to make it threw.
One of the bigest things your going to suffer with is lack of crit mit gear. TSO brought in mobs doing some big crit damage hence why you'll find your self standing tall np one min and then a few secs later fighting to live the next. I found that when TSO came out i was running the instances with Legendary and Fabled gear from RoK instances with 140aa and my epic and it was tough going to start with. I was in a similar situation of small guild so not able to get raid gear from RoK or myths so it was slow to start. Once you start getting the shards together and getting the T1 then upgrading to T2 gear you'll be fine. If people are tanking the zones in MC then they probably have some pretty well geared healers keeping them alive as personally i can't see how a MC group would be affective at all in TSO instances. I don't know how well your group gets through the RoK instances but unless your clearing through them comfortably your probably not geared up enough yet to progress through too many of the TSO instances. I would say stick to the 1st of the EF. LS and possibly CL instances and even try OOA in moors and see if you can clear those. Thats 7 shards per run so you'll soon be decked out in T1 gear and then move on to the 2nd instance for EF. If your not able to do any of those yet then there is always the option of doing the EF, CL and LS zones mentoring a lvl50 player and doing the mission quests for shards. That would yield you 8 shards for the 8 instances plus the aa for the quest. If your lucky one of them could be the daily double which would get you 10 shards for all 8.
Bazill@Nagafen wrote: Thank you for the feedback. I will give that a shot and see if that helps. I really didnt belive that anyone was completing TSO with crafted gear but I wanted to give the poster that stated that commit benefit of doubt and check. The only shards I do currently have were due to a guiildie helping me with a lv 52 toon so we can run the instances with all the mobs grey. After I did that I rolled a new alt and said not again. I just cant grind grey mobs to gear up, something just seems very wrong with that. I place it on the level of an exploit that SoE is pushing on players for really bad game design. Hardain, thank you for the response. If I ever have a chance to run the instances with a bard/chanter I will. I just havent had that chance yet. PUG bards and chanters do not seem common place on my server. Thetmes, If I am reading correct are you saying just get more mit? Umm you have a suggestion on how I can do that or are ya just saying get more? I have free respects, Ill give the wis line a chance and see if that helps. I assume you mean I should keep str and sta lines and dump int line?
Best advice? Find a dirge and coercer and become their best friend. Problems over. Seriously though; which zones are you having trouble with? TSO was slight departure from the tank and spank zones of the past. There's a right way and a wrong way to pull them. I do them the "wrong way" all the time for entertainment value but you don't have my gear.
Yes basicly dump the Int line for the Mit in the Wis line but only do that if they are close fights if the mob is over 5% and everyone is out of power when you die I doubt the Wis line will do you any good in that case if its under and you get hit for a big spike and peeps still have power it might help. Also I checked your gear and you are wearing the lv 77 MC stuff what you may want to look at is getting a few pieces Leg out of Maidens and the other lil instance in JW. There is a nice set of shoulders Legs and Chest ( if i remember right ) in there. Those could help allot possably. Oh 1 more thing there is a really decent Leg shield that you can get in TG for doing a quest in Karnor Castle I forget what the name of it is but it might be better than the MC one you have. As one of the poeple abouve said its all about crit mit and he is right untill you get some you will be a lil **** tanking the zones but if you can get as much mit as you can get before you start heading in there the lil non crit hits wont hit as hard making the big hits that do crit a lil easier to deal with. Anouther option for you could be do go into the zone as OT or DPS. I dont know how your server is about taking more than one figher in a group. I know that the group I usually run TSO zones with is 1 Guard 1 Zerk 1 Pally 1 Fury 1 Dirge and either a Sin or 2nd Healer depending on the zone. So if you could find a group like that or one that would be willing to take you on a few runs till you get your shards and can start running your own groups threw as MT it might be an idea. This would also give you the opertunity to learn the pulls and such on the named and what to expect and when.
While I tend to disagree with the WIS you may find some use in it. The replys you have gotten are not leading you wrong however. My personal view is this... being hit less will prolly benifit you more. To do this from AA you will need to take int ine.. 4468 and for the reuse 2 in the endine. Now so your understand I will explain. 4468 will give you around 4 levels of Parry skill depending on how much parry you already have it maybe as much as 10% more avoid. The endline is reuse time this will allow you to use your skills more often specifically our 30sec temp that ups parry/def and shield effectivness. Stamina line 4488 3rd tier if for DA which is more hate/dps 4th tier is for shield effectiveness 12% at max you said you cannot DW so this will further increase your avoid. you can take the endline it may or may not help you with power use. Str 448 for crit if you dont need the extra hate from the 4th tier wait to take it. as far as gear get your t1 shoulder for the extra mit first and foremost. this should increase your overall mit more then any AA choices your make. next pieces just either get bp legs or really you can take whatever is your weakest piece and upgrade according to your own personal pref. If anything if you have a lvl 50 toon between you and yoru wife you can get all the shards from DF/EF/CL a day which is 7 total. Zerker Tree take the cyclones down 3 each till you get to turmoil 5 there and 5 in open wounds those are you hate and dps. will help with your AE hate. also the endline int will help with reuse on those too. cyclones for the AE range and Taunt resist if you have the AA get the clickly zerker taking self and group zerker to max and filling in till you can access the clickly zerker. juggernaut is nice to max one day. come back to zerker tree later. TSO General get the hp and power 2.5% aa. Fighter improved rescue and the dps reduction endline if you need more hate. Warrior tree if you have the AA get stun resist and the shield block AA for increasing hate. Now by no means am I saying these guys are wrong to tell you what they have. However this is what worked for me. feel free to PM me if you would like more advice I spend a few hours a week helping any zerker that needs it and I havent had one zerker tell me i lead them wrong on anything. They have all excelled. My Zerkers link http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=573689203
Xaax wrote: As the poster who said that I suppose I should chime in. Let's clarify ... I'm not out there completing TSO instances in crafted gear regularly. I tanked Deep Forge on my Monk in MC armor. Once. It was the level 77 MC armor, not the 72 stuff. It wasn't pretty. No, there were no Mythical/raiding healers. And we didn't have a Shaman. It was slow, as one might expect. We wiped on the named with the hammers a couple times, and once on the guy in the middle. My Berserker, being my main and OT used for raids since KoS never touched MC in T8. Honestly it seems like people run DF before anything else but I think Scion is much, much easier than DF. OoA I think is the easiest of all, and it shouldn't take many times through to upgrade your shield. I agree about the grey shards. It's too bad they didn't eliminate that before people started abusing that. I ran plenty back in early TSO .... primarily for AA though, the shards were just a side-effect. My suggestions would be: *You haven't done the Lavastorm solo series leading to WoE access. Do it. Among other things you'll get a decent ring at the end. If nothing else, do what you need to to get the daily shard quest, and then duo it with your wife. *Don't feel like you have to finish every instance. Can you kill the large groups in the Caverns of the Afflicted foyer? There are two shard quests that just require these mobs, which respawn as long as you don't kill the first Malevolent dude. There are quests in Halls of the Forsaken that similarly do not require the death of any named mobs. *Get enough shards to upgrade those level 69 boots ASAP. It's only 4 shards! (5 if you can't find a crafter ... still) Think I'd go with pants next ... 5 shards, iirc, and +6 Def, +6 Parry can't hurt, eh? *There are other niceties you can get from solo quest lines. For that matter, you could duo the Rime faction stuff and be able to buy a relatively inexpensive, quality set of armor. I'd have to look at it again on the merchant to see exactly how nice it is. *Definitely do what Samous said with regards to the Int line. I hadn't noticed that you only went to the 3rd item there. Personally I would go to the end ability (4-4-6-8-2).
Stance Mastery (end line WIS ability) does wonders for 'under' geared tanks (yours isn't awful just the TSO mobs are tough.) I had it on my 'Zerk prior to updrading to shard armor. We (my SO and I) were able to do TSO instances minus the nameds with just four characters (two + two boxed - my zerk, her fury and cony, and my dirge; by the way, once you have a dirge with your zerker you'll feel practically naked without one.) You can stay in DEF stance and be able to do better damage than you are now, and you also will not have any penalities to your temp defensive CAs. The WIS line gets pooh-poohed a lot around here, and for the better geared players probably deservedly so, but for the lesser geared tanks it really is quite good. It will get you through the rough patch until you can get your mit and avoidance higher, which will come with the shard armor. Good luck
Kimber@Nagafen wrote: Do not follow this advice. STR STA INT is the way to go. However I do recommend you change it up to this: STR 4 4 8 5 STA 4 4 8 8 INT 4 6 4 8 2 You don't need the hate gain from the STR line that bad, nor the STA end line. However you do want the extra 19 parry from the INT line as well as the INT end ability. Zerker tree, get Enhance Berserk Rage 5, Enhance Wall of Rage 3, and Enhance War Cry 3. Drop Enhance Open Wounds altogether, and max your Cyclones tree with everything else. Be sure to pick up Gut Bloodlust in the Debilitations tree (I recommend maxing everything except Body Check and Demolish to get it). All the WIS line does is remove the Defense penalty from offense stance, and the slashing penalty from defense stance. But a measely 20 points of each doesn't make as big a difference as you think. And besides the +19 Parry from INT tree makes up for it just as well. Remember to rotate your temporary defense buffs (Chaos, Wall of Rage, and Controlled Rage) throughout fights, they will greatly help you out. I find it most effective to always start with Controlled Rage, then hit Chaos when CR fades, and by the time Chaos fades, Controlled Rage should be available again. The opposite order works as well, but you'll then need to cycle Wall of Rage. And don't be afraid to hit Adrenaline when things hit the fan. I'll echo what the above posters said: Make friends with a Dirge, it will make your life a whole lot easier. Also a word of advice, remember to adorn your gear. Once you get some quality armor and jewelry that you won't be replacing easily, and once you get your epic, get the following adorns: Shoulder: Scintillating Rugged Straps (+100 HP) Forearm: Smoldering Glancing Splint (+8 parry) Neck: Smoldering Judicious Clasp (+12 DPS) Fingers: Smoldering Rugged Polish (+100 HP per ring) Wrist: Smoldering Balanced Fastening (+3% uncontested Parry per wrist) Bow: Smoldering Judicious Composite Gear (+12 DPS) Throwing: Smoldering Judicious Easyloader (+12 DPS) Slashing Weapon: Smoldering Balanced Ayr Stone (+3% uncontested Riposte) The Wrist and Slashing Weapon adorns are the big adornments to help your survivability, as are the shoulder, forearm, and ring adorns (the HP adorns are also fairly cheap). Also if you're interested in temporary food, look into the parry and dodge food and drink, known as reductions and infusions (Bruteflesh Reduction, Drachnid Reduction, Mountain Giant Sweat Infusion, Devourer Blood Infusion, etc. There's a whole bunch to pick from). They only last 30 minutes apiece, but they're worth the extra expense in keeping you alive.
Reason for the open wounds in Cyclones tree is to help him with his AE agro. I am certain he does not have his mythical yet and he may find Open wounds more useful for hate I did. However getting the 2 blue back AEs maxed may also work. In the cyclones line the only thing that most eveyone will share is Turmoil maxed. What ever works for you is what you should use. I only just recently started using Gut Bloodlust. I am only semi happy with it as its better then perz line. Some of the things in that line are ok. Xalmat has the adornments solid. No arguements at all there. And the food/water is what i use. So you understand the common theme MIT is important however avoid will keep you alive. Sure make friends with a dirge. I find I only need a dirge in raids now to get agro. Groups I never need a dirge any more only class that gives me grief is Brigand. If your still reading this thread you will have noticed almost everyone does something different. When you truely grasp the class you will have created your own playstyle and found out what works for you. So take everything we say with a grain of salt and if someone doesnt explain the reasoning behind it they prolly just copied someone else. -sam
Dirges are one of those jack of all trades that just makes everything easier. They greatly boost your defense, to the point where it's like having a second healer in the group. They greatly boost your offense, which means mobs die faster. They greatly boost your aggro, which is good since holding aggro is your job. They can boost healing to your priests. They have good debuffs which debuff just about everything under the sun. And of course they put out some pretty good damage output for themselves. Tanking pre-mythical I never found Open Wounds warranted extra points, and really once you get Jeering Onslaught in the TSO tree your AoE aggro goes up significantly. But if you really wanted you could drop the INT tree for the AGI tree, which provides 40% AoE auto-attack full time as well as +Defense.
Dont get me wrong Xalmat I love my dirge friends I find myself going from 55% avoid DW to 67% with a dirge. TBH a dirge is a Zerkers best friend. since we run the line of tank/dps so well they boost us more then most classes. On top of that you will find you can DW with a dirge in your group more often and they will really help agro. Just remember to keep your weapons on the same attack timers. 3seconds being fabled and you can use a 3 or 6s OH. I cannot ever remember a time when I had trouble AE even pre Mythical. I am certain as soon as he gets a few better pieces of gear and atleast his fabled he will be seeing things get much easier. Thankfully he is playing his zerker after TSO....now that i think about it I was using Open Wounds more for a parse thing. Youll have to forgive me its been quite some time since I used open wounds for anything other then the haste when i wasnt already maxed. Nothing wrong with droping INT for AGI if you find it more useful. I never used the AGI tree. Seems like it all boils down to he needs gear. We can argue over what AA does what all day and none of us will do it the same. Some things are common like Stam DA and Str Crit. Personally if he just got an idea of what was out there and learned somethings about the AA and class from imput on this thread I would think we all contributed to another GOOD zerker. On a side note I dont disagree with Xalmat I just have a different method to my madness. I hope we didnt confuse you. And if we did feel free to ask I have found most of the zerker community helpful and willing to take time to teach a young zerker. at any rate...just a thought -sam
As many of the others here said and they are right find what works for you I went with Wis for a couple reasons and it worked for me lol. Each to their own though as things stand right now though I still have some of the Wis line but mainly for Belly Smash but then I am on a PvP server and with the crazy Mit and Crit Mit now it helps a lil to lower there stuff and I only have it on my DPS spec. My Tank spec is Str Stam and Int now that I have the gear to back it up.
Samous@Crushbone wrote: That i can agree to. To the original poster, your gear is a good starting foundation. You just need to spend some time and get some upgrades now, which will come with time. The easiest pieces will be Tier 1 Gloves and Boots, but the biggest bang for your buck comes from the BP and Shoulders first. Once you have a full T1 set then you can move up to T2 piece-by-piece. Jewelry will be a bit harder to come by, but you'll get them running instances. I'd hold off on void shard jewelry until you get a full set of T2.
Some of the 5 shard jewelry is pretty worthwhile for survivability purposes. Defender's band, for example, is ring 5 defense / parry (and deflection but you don't need that). There's a belt that's the same. There's some 15 and 20 shard items that do much the same, get those later if you still need them. The 5 shard ones though, they really made a huge difference for tanking on my bruiser.
I do have all my gear adorned, not sure why my profile link does not show the adornments? Xalmat’s list of adornments looks much better for the most part then what I have. I have a lot of +sta adornments instead of the +DPS stuff. I do not have my mythical but am working on it. I didn’t know about the 30 minute food, I usually use the stat + stuff, I will look for the parry/dodge stuff. I have changed my AAs to the: STR 4 4 8 5 STA 4 4 8 8 INT 4 4 6 8 2 Kurgan, thank you for the item links some nice items, I will looking into getting those. TBH I didn’t think I was a terrible tank until Kurgan slapped me to the floor with tanking TSO in master crafted gear as a monk. I never had issues in DoF, Sky, EoF or Kunark instances. I even got a few complements on my tanking style. When TSO came out it was like running into a brick wall, I guess that crit mit is just that important. I guess in the end I just need to grind shards, I was kinda hoping that the next expansion would help my bypass that but its sounding like that is not going to happen. As far as looking for a chanter/bard, I will keep at it. I guess its either this or gind grey instances =/ Thank you all for the input, there is a lot of good opinions and advice in here.
As another newbie zerker I thought this would be a good time to jump in with some questions. 1. OK i'm running low on power a LOT. Yes I spam my CA's whilst timing my autoattacks but the way I like to play is that I pull fast and keep people on their toes. Any suggestions to counteract this instead of just getting a chanter in the group or using the end line of the STR line? 2. Crit Mit. I was under the impression that only raid mobs were able to crit on you is this wrong? If so what would be a good crit number for simply tanking TSO instances? The difference between T1 and T2 armor seems so slim crit mit wise like +1 on a item etc. 3. OK here goes with the stats, unbuffed I have around 12k Hitpoints, 46 DA and 55 MC. I dont know if this is good or bad, I think its bad but I am not sure. 4. In terms of tanking zones, I always try to tank dual wielding in offensive stance, if I can hit too hard I switch to a shield and remain in offensive stance. I have 187 AAs and am tempted to put the last few points of my shadows tree into the offensive stance buff.
